


Oh, The Heart Beats In Its Cage

by composite_event



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Angst, But Only If You Can Accept That They ARE Monsters, But That Does Not Justify Patricide, Daddy Issues, Dubious Consent Due To Identity Issues, Extreme Sensitivity, F/M, Force Bond, Grey Rey, Han Really Was A Scoundrel, I Am Already Writing Severely Twisted Individuals Here, I Do Not Care If They Turn Out To Be Cousins, I'm Bad At Summaries, I'm Sorry, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Like really slow, Master Luke Preaches Ego-Death, Mentions of Previous Sexual Assault, Mommy Issues, Monsters Need Love Too, My Writing Rambles A Lot, My Writing Style Is Very Disjointed, Obsession, Other, Reylo - Freeform, Self-Hatred, Self-cest, Slow Burn, Snoke Is Not Impossibly Omniscient, Stone-Cold Leia Organa, That's Not How The Force Works, Touch-Starved, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, sorry - Freeform, this is hell
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-02-18
Packaged: 2018-05-19 19:51:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5979112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/composite_event/pseuds/composite_event
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is no redemption. No chance of clawing his way back into the Light.<br/>But if he can drag her down, as sure as the suns must always set, maybe<br/>he'll at least have some company in the Dark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please Note:  
> This is not a happy fic. Kylo Ren will not be rehabilitated in it.  
> He will not be reunited with family and friends who accept him  
> and believe that he can change. If this is what you want by the  
> end, please turn back now.
> 
> Throughout this fic, I will be referring to Ben Solo and Kylo Ren  
> as completely separate people, because I believe they are, even  
> if they happen to inhabit the same body. 
> 
> Also: This fic will contain reference to prior sexual assault which  
> could be triggering to some readers.

* * *

 

**"** Help me, I'm just not quite myself--

Look around, there's no one else left. **"**

 

* * *

 

He is too vain to allow the marks to mar his skin for long.

 

Not of his body, no. After all, his grandfather's physical form had been mutilated beyond comprehension, until he had been more machine than man, followed always by the unsettling gasp of his armor's respirator. Darth Vader's strength had been too great for his human shell, and Kylo Ren hoped to one day mirror that greatness. Surpass it. Cloak himself in his grandfather's memory and purpose until his name, too, was synonymous with power. But he was not yet such a specimen of terror. The desert vermin had been correct about that, if nothing else. And he did not deserve the scars that marked his torso. Not yet. Perhaps if he had snuffed the Wookiee's life out, he could proudly bear the bowcaster mark that marched up his side, streaking him from hip to pectoral. In this, Kylo Ren had failed.

And so, the bacta tank. 

Until his enemies were corpses, the marks they left on his skin only served as _lèse majesté._ Scars from those that still walked were like a beacon, red and resplendent, proclaiming that Kylo Ren could be crossed. Could be hurt. Could be killed. And that those who did that deed could walk away with impunity. Skitter back into the underbrush to be lost, as though they were harmless. And _if_ they were harmless, what did that make him? He, who had been brought to the edge of death by things so feeble and useless and _beneath_ him. His loss was an embarrassment. It was a humiliation. Until every creature who crossed him was rotting and bloated, Kylo Ren must appear perfect. Untouched. The picture of absolute dominion over all things. 

Ben Solo had suffered such things meekly, with downcast eyes or pathetic tears. The little boy with the skinned knees, more fond of books than of other children. Sad little Ben, not important enough for Mommy, not exciting enough for Daddy. But Ben Solo was a lower life form, a disgusting waste of illustrious lineage and innate talent. Kylo Ren had usurped both, because Kylo Ren knew what to do with them. He was the result of a thousand night terrors and a dozen careful whispers from a quiet voice that could have been Snoke, or maybe just Ben's own guilty wishes to be able to protect himself from a world that didn't seem to want him in it.  Baptized in blood and glory, spineless Ben Solo had been relegated to a box in the back of his own mind, and his too-young face with its too-soft eyes and too-generous mouth disappeared under a mask that made him every bit the demon that he needed and wanted and _yearned_ to be. 

It made him Kylo Ren.

He is the First Knight, and the Supreme Leader's hand in all things, and the fallen scion of the Skywalker bloodline, and his flesh is knitting together a little at a time, while his mind wanders halls that are dark and silent except for the probably-symbolic crying of a far-off child. The First Knight of Ren has always known that noise. Hears it in his sleep, at the far edge of hearing, and as the ambient sound which chases him through every battle. This is an infant in a tomb somewhere, smothering slowly, and it is Kylo Ren's deepest and most pure desire to watch as its little face purples and it finally goes still.

She is there, too, as she has been since the interrogation, her presence only growing stronger, more insistent, until his sense of her through the invisible thread that connects them makes it feel as though she's crowding him out of his own mind. Stealing his mental space the same way her grubby scavenger hands stole the weapon so rightfully his and used it to carve burning swaths across his flesh. His face in imperfect halves, like she'd tried to mark territory for the little boy squashed inside the weight of the armor that is Kylo Ren, giving Ben Solo space that he hasn't had a right to in years. It galls him. It enrages him. And yet still, the bacta is going about its work, coaxing new skin over his scarred face until it is once again alabaster white, porcelain smooth. A mask to wear beneath his mask. One that is serene as he floats there in the tank, dreaming violent deaths for all those who had ever crossed him, but especially the ignorant garbage-picker from Jakku. 

He believed, once, that he would earn blessed silence when he cauterized the chambers of Han Solo's still-beating heart into a useless mass of charred muscle. But, of course, his mind has only been more crowded of late. There are moments when he can feel terrain beneath his feet. A thousand stone stairs that make his unmoving thighs burn and his unbent knees ache. He knows the frustration of a technique not yet mastered, and the determination to continue until it has been memorized by every bodily cell. The questions she will never ask Master Luke filter into Kylo Ren's mind, and he seethes to have that Jedi drivel parceled, even second-hand, into his thoughts. Peace and calm and be-nothing and do-nothing, and he wonders if the girl will hang on every word or if even  _she_ is clever enough to realize that she's being asked to cut out her beating heart to lay it on the altar of Skywalker's ideals.

The girl. Unwilling to grant her her own name, she became a litany of epithets to him, nothing more. The sandrat, every bit of her callused and wiry from every kind of malnourishment and neglect. Impertinent, disgusting _thing._ Just some throwaway nobody wanted-- he had seen as much reflected on the walls of her mind. Just some hitchhiking space trash his father had found aboard the  _Falcon_ and been too lazy to cast off. Or maybe the old man had simply wanted another notch for his belt, another pair of legs around his hips. Ben had witnessed his father's weakness for women more than once, all of five years old and still enough of a novelty to merit the occasional trip with his father. He'd wondered then how many of him there were in the galaxy. How many little Ben Solos that would see Han only when he wasn't busy with something more interesting. His mother could have been his solace, but while his father was chasing tail and adventure, General Organa had been chasing political power in the name of her never-ending cause.  _Don't look at me like that, kid. Your mother knows exactly who she married._  The wave of heart-sick disappointment that had belonged to Ben Solo then is only academic knowledge now, to Kylo Ren, but he feels disgust from the other end of the thread as the mental image finds a home in the girl's thoughts. Dismay and confusion and  _hurt_ , because poor Han Solo is  _dead_ , and it is  _desecration_  to picture him dishonoring himself and General Organa, and how  _dare_ Kylo Ren insinuate that the smuggler, the scoundrel, would invalidate his marriage vows. How  _dare_ he force that image, which  _couldn't_ be true-- and he gives her to know that it  _is_ , that it  _was_ , that the only reason Ben's father allowed her to stay aboard his precious ship was the possibility of what's between her skinny legs-- into her thoughts. She is righteous fury and indignation and embarrassment. And oh, at last, delicious on his tongue, she is  _doubtful_. She  _wonders_. She feels a sick weight in the pit of her stomach that spirals into nausea at the images he feeds her, because the man had been the closest she'd ever come to having a father. And how sad is that? A few days of positive connection, and she deifies a man she never knew, and now will never know. 

_He would have disappointed you._  It had been the voice of experience then, and it is the voice of experience now, whispered into the girl's mind like drops of poison spreading through a cup of wine. It is a low growl, a snide murmur, a snarl.  _Did you think a moment's kindness to you meant he was good? That he had no ulterior motives? I think we're both too versed in the ways of the galaxy to believe something so naive._

_Weak._   He flings the word at her, wraps it like a sensuous caress around a memory of Han Solo's hands fisted in hair like spun gold, pushing a nameless face down, down. It is not Leia's hair. It is not Leia's face. And little Ben feels revulsion. Little Ben feels the foundations of everything he believes about the world and his family and the  _very important_ things his parents do that keep them  _away_ all the time-- those foundations crack, and what seeps up from beneath is doubt. Fear. Anger. Betrayal. A startling sense of how small he is, and how unable to prevent these destructions of his reality, these fissures of the mind.

But Ben Solo has a protector now, someone who  _is_ strong enough to alter things, to bring every liar who ever said the word  _love_ to heel. Ben Solo has Kylo Ren, and  _needs_ Kylo Ren, because little Ben is weak like the girl is weak. Pitiful like the girl is pitiful. And perhaps  _she_ needs Kylo Ren. Perhaps if she had been wise enough to accept him as her teacher, she would not have to hurt the way that he's hurting her now. But of course, she can only be for him or against him, and she has chosen the latter, and so the First Knight of Ren will crush her. Snoke will crush her. The First Order will crush her. She is a thing easily trampled, easily used, and he will see things done to her that would make poor, dead Ben Solo's rotting father blush.

She is trying to center herself, to take each emotion and carefully release it, so that the images cannot hurt her. Kylo Ren, immersed in liquid, feels hot tears lining a face that is not his own, and they taste sweet, so sweet, because  _this_ is his path to victory. Not in the battering of her body, and the stopping of her breath, but in the breaking of her mind!

There are things beneath the surface here, like hulks buried in the sand where she used to dig and climb and slave for the mouthfuls it would take to keep her living one more day. There is treasure here, dark and bloody, when he suddenly  _knows_ why she'd nested in ruins and relics instead of trying to forge bonds with the other human refuse of her dustball planet. Something that his embellished fiction of his father called forward, an oozing memory of intrusion that he  _sees_ and  _hears_ as scrabbling hands on shifting sand, and a high keen that is pain and outrage and heartbreak. She is small and she is terrified, does not understand what is happening, will not understand for many, many years. And then she will cover herself always, and creep on the edges of what passes for civilization on Jakku. Because people are painful, whether they leave you or destroy you or take what is supposed to be only yours, and give nothing in return. People are the true danger, and this she will carry with her, even when her heart swells with friendship for the smart-mouthed pilot and his defective Stormtrooper boyfriend. She is alone, and alone is better, even though alone is painful, because at least it isn't the same as before. At least it isn't like  _then_.

This is not something she wants him to see, and she tries to shield the memory from him, to cast him out, but the connection between them doesn't work that way, and in her mind's eye Kylo Ren sneers, taunting her with the understanding that he is an intruder that will never leave. Never be done rending her open and filling her with all the things she abhors. Never, never,  _never_ will she be alone again, and it is not the answer to her longest prayer, but a curse she cannot break. One she forged of her own will when she had the temerity to trespass in his superior mind. He is stronger than she will ever be, untouched by all her desperate fighting-- for a flash, he sees himself as she had seen him, bleeding in the snow, as though the possibility of his being whole and unscathed registers as impossibility-- but he need not even come for her. At his leisure, he can riffle through her untrained mind, pluck from it all the ways to tear her apart. And what would Master Luke say? To know that his new Padawan is only some defiled, weak garbage, too pathetic even to close the doors of her own mind, would be such a disappointment. Surely there were  _other_  Force sensitives in the galaxy that would be more suitable. More stable. More  _pure_. 

The child that is always whimpering at the edge of his thoughts is wailing now, but the First Knight of Ren isn't certain, at first, if it is the ghost of Ben Solo begging him to stop this, or just the girl. Their voices blend in a perfect, begging crescendo that makes his spine arch and his pulse beat faster through every vein. Proof that  _he_ is in control, that he can quash the Light entirely or leash it like a dog to his whims. 

 

_Understand that you can never hide from me, Scavenger._ And he knows, where she sits on the cliff, eyes closed to the sight of an unending sea, that she can feel his hand at the back of her neck. Long, slender digits curling with deceptive pressure to either side of her throat. 

 

_I am in you, now._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is in flux. This is because I find myself more at home  
> in Kylo Ren's point of view. Which should tell you about a million  
> terrible things about me.

* * *

 

 **"** Well, don't teach me a lesson--

'Cause I've already learned.. **"**

 

* * *

 

 

She is Padawan now to the last Jedi Master, the legendary Luke Skywalker, who will teach her the ways of the Force.  He is a war hero, and General Organa's twin brother, Chewbacca has told her during their flight to the secluded hermitage where her new teacher has spent years in self-imposed exile. He had an academy once, hundreds of students that were ultimately slaughtered when his last Padawan, his nephew, fell to the Dark side. Donned a helmet and cloak. Swore allegiance to the First Order. Became Kylo Ren.

Her first question had been about the water.

Vast and roaring, throwing itself against the craggy edges of the island, endless. Rey cannot consciously remember ever having seen so much, and she wonders what one is meant to call a desert of water like that. On Jakku, all through her life in the time she is coming to think of as 'Before', the liquid had been precious. Valuable. Coveted. Yet each place she's washed up has seemed to have an unlimited store, and part of her feels wonder at the same time another part is feeling bitterness. In all the universe, with so many planets more capable of sustaining life, why had They abandoned her in such a dry, vicious place?  

Takodana had been green, covered in lush vegetation that she'd thought of as impossibly luxurious. Whole lakes sat undisturbed, just part of the scenery. Something pretty for looking at or swimming in, rather than a vital and desperate resource for survival. It was jarring, almost disturbing, that anyplace could be so effortlessly comfortable. At least, until the First Order descended. 

Even Starkiller Base had been possessed of a startling amount of water, although it had been frozen, falling in cold flakes that melted against her skin. Swirled in glittering flurries, painted green and red in the light of the saber blades that flashed between them. Blanketed Finn's too-still body where he'd collapsed, spine a wrecked ruin. Icy white on dark curls, black armor, pale skin, claret colored blood. 

It is a line of thought that brings Kylo Ren firmly into her mind, a flash of discomfort as she pictures the only face she allows herself to assign to him. Chrome on black, unreadable and ruthless. His eyes are not allowed to be wide pools of ink that catch every bit of light. He cannot have his furrowed brow, or full lips pulled away from his teeth as he claws at his wounded side, spilling blood on snow. He is older than she, taller, stronger, but the features behind his mask had been incongruously delicate, soft somehow even in the grips of pain and rage. Too easy, looking into that face, to see the son of General Organa, and believe that he might be in there still.  It's an image she doesn't want in her head, and dutifully she slows her breathing, closes her eyes to acknowledge her sudden spike of discomfort and then release it. Let it dissipate and leave her empty, calm. She will not allow him to hold the power of her own fear over her, and will not delude herself that he is deserving of pity. Not when she has seen what he is capable of. Not while she remembers, still, how Han Solo's limp form looked as it plunged headlong into the dark. How long Finn lay submerged in bacta, everyone waiting tense and silent for him to move, to speak, to walk. Poe's scars from his interrogation. The way the pilot had hidden his face in his hands when Finn was brought in too still, maybe dead.

A low voice in her head, the phantom sensations of his experiences, the unabating cruelty with which Kylo Ren ransacks her memories whenever the mood strikes him. 

_There is no emotion. There is peace._

Luke-- she cannot think of him as 'Master' without remembering Unkar Plutt and years of near-starvation-- has told her that this is part of the Jedi Code. No being afraid, no being angry, no dwelling on things that are painful. She is supposed to conquer so many things: Recklessness, Stubbornness, Aggression. Curiosity. She is supposed to sever her attachments, think of herself as little as possible, want nothing. Accept that all beings are one in the Force, and that none matters any more or any less than another. Even her friends. In the pursuit of the greater good, she must understand that Finn, Poe, Chewbacca-- even the great General Organa-- can not be allowed to mean more than other innocent lives just because  _Rey_ cares about them. 

_There is no passion. There is serenity._

Ahch-To is the planet's name, and she'd stepped down from the loading ramp of the _Falcon_ with such wonder, such a feeling of awed victory, when she first arrived. It was beautiful-- startlingly so-- but also forbidding. Sharp spires and blocks of stone provide a solid space on which to live, speckled with grasses, mosses, algae. And there was Luke Skywalker, an aged man, but one with an aura of wisdom and strength, ready to guide her on the path to her destiny. Rey had believed the decision was so easy, when she'd made it. Of  _course_ , she would be his Padawan. Become a great Jedi Knight. Help to destroy the First Order for the good of the galaxy, so that no one would live in the cruel shadow of Kylo Ren and his phantom master ever again. People believe she can do this, and on the wave of their belief Rey finds that  _she_ believes as well. She is no longer just some scavenger from the wastes, dependent on whatever she can dig out of the sand for a few meager rations. No longer surviving purely to wait for those who decided long ago to throw  _her_ away. 

And yet.

Skywalker tells her that there is so much water here because Ahch-To is an aquatic planet, and then the subject of their surroundings is never addressed again, except in a cursory reference to his choosing the place because it is the site of the first Jedi temple. He trains her from dawn until dusk, each day, every day, in how to connect more purely with the Force, how to let it wash through her, how she must let go of all she is, all she has ever been, if she truly wishes to become a Knight. She runs up the temple stairs and down again. Balances the weight of her body on two hands at first, and then only one. Hones her reflexes and instincts. Practices strict self discipline, sleeping on the hard ground, maintaining silence when not spoken to. Rey must conquer curiosity, and so she swallows her questions after the third day, when Luke responds to them with only a silent stare. She tells herself that she is accustomed to loneliness and physical deprivation, and those things are true, but she is also aware of how much she had come to rely on Finn's jittery energy, Chewbacca's staunch loyalty, Poe Dameron's cocksure humor. They cannot be here with her, and she fears that her training will keep her secluded, a hermit like Skywalker, so long that they no longer think of her the same way. Rey cannot help but feel that what Luke really wants is for her to throw  _herself_ away. 

The concept is terrifying, and as with all her moments of deepest conflict, there is the sudden awareness that she is not alone.

Unaccounted for, her lungs are filled with the scent of engine oil, and she knows that Kylo Ren is in a hangar somewhere, assessing his transport from behind the blank, black eyeshield of his helmet. He supervises, providing an intimidating presence for the Stormtroopers and lesser personnel as they scurry back and forth, trying to appease the Knight. He is known even on his own side as impatient, and violent when his expectations are not met in full. And there is something that he wants badly, something that has not been instantly granted, and so his temper bridles, flares. Rey has so rarely experienced these flashes of awareness that she is at first disoriented, unsure of how she is seeing, feeling, things that are happening across the galaxy. There are hundreds of stars and systems between them, strung like lanterns in a sky that suddenly feels too small, too close. And he gives her the knowledge that this is something he does often-- watching through her, knowing her every moment. His smug satisfaction ghosts over her skin, a sensation that is all in her mind, and yet makes her cringe bodily all the same. The memory of his crude slander of Han Solo, his disgusting insinuations, the robbery of her thoughts, slams to the fore of her awareness, and he is  _amused_ by her revulsion. Like a sharp-billed bird, Kylo Ren picks expertly among her thoughts, her insecurities, and worries. Seizes on the insignificant question that Skywalker did not consider important enough for a straightforward answer. And before the Knight of Ren shuts the door of his own mind, shooing her out like an unruly child, the answer is something he drops into the space that stretches out between them.

It is only a single word, spoken in his low, rolling voice. Two syllables, crisp, unaltered by the vocal filter in his mask. It is foreign to her, unknown, but the knowledge is part and parcel to the sound, and when she opens her eyes, stretching out of the meditation posture, Rey finally knows what to call the mass of water that rushes against the shoreline.

The word is  _Ocean_.

And she is not sure having that answer is worth the way it was given to her. 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't consider this a warning exactly, but from a  
> certain point of view some of this chapter may be  
> considered M/M or Self-cest or both. If either bother  
> you, this may not be the fic for you.
> 
> Also, sorry about how abrupt this ends. I plan to follow  
> up with either Rey's or Kylo's point of view. What do you  
> guys think?

 

* * *

 

"All of those you loved

You mistrust.."

 

* * *

 

Ben is not often awake.

 

He is a quiet boy, made more quiet by how often he sleeps. Lies dormant. Is pushed under. But Ben Solo doesn't usually think about that last. Or if he does, it is only with a vague fascination. A sense of calm acceptance. Because what he  _wants_ is to be held carefully apart and separate from the serrated edges of the world at large. He has lost, finally and completely, all control. And that comes with a blissful feeling of peace he's sure Kylo would sneer at, if it didn't benefit him directly. Still, every now and again, Ben opens his eyes and is startled to find that he is taking up space. He can feel, against his skin, the heavy wool uniform. The weight of the helmet over his head, tinging the world with the dark color of its eyeguard. Being enclosed in such a way should be comforting, but he finds the mask claustrophobic. Alone inside it, his every breath filling the air between the helmet and his face, Ben knows that he can't take it off. Not where soldiers might see him. See his features relaxed, utterly devoid of rage, smoothed into youthfulness without the seething hatred that typically roils beneath. 

He knows what they will see if he is not careful, and he knows what Kylo will do if they see.

Even now, while he's moving down halls he barely recognizes-- plastisteel, duracrete, the same as any military installation, regardless of what side it belongs to-- Ben can  _feel_ the quick, clipped directions as though they are being murmured against the base of his skull, more vibration than sound. The First Knight of Ren does not excuse himself to anyone, does not bow or scrape unless he is in Snoke's antechamber, and Kylo's unwillingness to acknowledge his fellow First Order members is beneficial to the little boy that shares his shell. Because Ben's voice is soft, lower now with more years on it, but still tentative. Even with the vocal scrambler inside the helmet, he is certain to be marked as an impostor if anyone hears Kylo Ren use the word "please." He isn't sure what they would do to him, or even if they  _could_. Same face, same hands, same aptitude with the Force. He is capable of defending himself, but of course, that would only make things worse. There is a deep, sardonic chuckle on the edge of his hearing, and Ben knows that Kylo thinks he is an idiot child, unable to do so much as navigate the compound without anxiety.

He isn't wrong. Ben knows that. 

_Left. Straight at the next intersection of hallways. Up the second stairwell._

Perhaps Kylo Ren is harsh with him-- with everyone-- but he is unfailingly honest. The hiss and snarl of the voice inside his head has never bothered to pull punches or sugarcoat difficult facts, and it's something Ben Solo has learned to rely on. It's something he has surrendered to, gratefully and without reservation. He knows that if possible, the First Knight would push him down until he never surfaces again, and that outcome would make  _both_ of them happy. Ben wants them to be the same, to be united in purpose, but he isn't as strong as his Other. He is a failure, a weakling. Unable to live up to his potential or do justice to the memory of his grandfather. Unable to turn his back on the Light completely. It isn't as though he hasn't had the chance. Kylo has tried so hard to help him, to lead him into the Dark, to provide him with the suffering, the rage, he so badly needs. To give him focus. To make him strong. 

_Down this hallway. The door on the left. Manage your posture._

It had been Kylo Ren who put the lightsaber in his hand, standing on the metal grille of the bridge on Starkiller, watching his father come closer, closer. Kylo Ren who pushed poor little Ben forward, made him stand at the front of their mind and look out through their eyes at the old man rushing toward them. But Han hadn't been able to see Kylo at all. He wasn't there in the droop of their shoulders, or in their brows drawn together with pain and confusion. Eyes dark and glassy, lips parted around words that stick in their throat. Kylo says that this is  _Ben's_ defining moment, the one that will decide what he is to be, and Ben wants so badly to make him proud, but instead he trembles, he dissolves, he tells his father more than he has ever told any living soul about what it is like to be this entity, split apart, unable to feel whole. He failed, in that moment. It could have been an act that solidified a core of hatred and suffering inside him, consecrated him purely to the Dark. But in that, as in every moment since his inception, Kylo had been forced to save him. Ben had relinquished control, and then his Other was there, engaging the weapon, sending the crackling beam of their saber up through Han Solo's chest. And although the smuggler didn't know it-- couldn't, already dyingfallingdyinggone-- the face he'd caressed so gently had not been his son's.

Kylo is always protecting him.

 

The door slides into a recess in the wall, allowing them entry, and folds back into place once they have cleared the aperture. It is a small chamber, inside, neat to the point of sterility. Duracrete floors and walls, with a single-size platform in the corner that must be the bed, although its mattress remains rolled atop it, unused. It is not enough to tell Ben if these are new quarters. Kylo is fastidious to a fault, and does not travel with much in the way of personal clutter. Their grandfather's helmet is not in the room, and this detail lets him know that wherever they are, whatever they are doing, the First Knight of Ren does not entirely trust the safety of this compound. Not enough to hazard his most priceless possession. 

On second glance, the quarters are smaller even than Ben had originally thought. A wide panel of the wall is mirrored, and the sight of it makes him freeze for a moment. Stock-still, heart constricting in their chest, he takes inventory of all his faults and failures, tries to remember what he can have done lately to deserve this, and knows that what he considers a balanced scale does not mean anything to Kylo Ren. Injuries they sustained in battle do not pay the price that Ben owes, and so he does the only thing he knows the Other will find acceptable. Thumbing the release for their helmet, he waits for the hiss of depressurization before pulling the mask up and away, leaving it abandoned beside the roll of mattress, and skulks toward the mirror.

They are never further apart than when Ben Solo is looking at his own face. Kylo knows this. Kylo knows everything. And Ben also knows that if he were to try to turn away, to look anywhere else in the room, he would find himself frozen, held in place by invisible hands. His is not the power here. It has never been. And in all these intervening years, the boy who had once been a Jedi initiate has almost mastered the lack of fear Skywalker tried to preach. He does not fear the Resistance or his mother or even Lord Snoke. What Ben Solo fears is only displeasing Kylo Ren. Disappointing him. Earning moments like these in front of a mirror, forced to  _see_ that he is standing alone in a room, and he is weak, and he is frail, and he is nothing. 

For less than a second, his eyes are closed, but it is more than enough time for the slap that lands hard and stinging against the left side of his face, and the sound that leaves him is almost a whine. Ben knows that their hands have not moved, but that has never stopped Kylo Ren, and when he looks up again--quick, appeasing, responding to that correction of his behavior like a trained animal-- the expression on their face is icy condescension. Their voice rolls like thunder, low and foreboding, and Ben  _watches_ himself saying the words,  _hears_ Kylo coming out of their shared throat. Feels another pair of eyes on them, somewhere, but knows he cannot look away again. 

"I  _should_ be half the way to Gan Moradir right now. Do you know what _insignificant_ waste of time is preventing me from this errand on the Supreme Leader's behalf..?" Kylo's voice has slowed to a savage purr, dark eyes narrowing to venomous slits in the mirror, making Ben feel two inches tall. He knows the answer, but cannot say it. The rules have been clear for years, and he is not to speak until he has been given permission. Instead, he looks out from behind those same inky irises and feels a sick kind of anticipation. This is punishment, yes, but it is also one of the rare moments that his Other directly addresses him, and part of Ben feels that this attention, even negative as it is, is a mark of favor. The only thing spoiling it is the niggling awareness on the edge of his mind that this is not private, that the girl from the interrogation room is watching, that this is somehow about  _her_ rather than  _him._

The rake of nails down his back is without preamble, just one of a thousand ways that Kylo Ren bends the Force to his will, but Ben does not control their vocal cords, and he can only release his groan through that open door in their mind, letting it echo across the awareness of the girl, Rey, who tries to recoil. Can't. She's there suddenly, tethered to them both through the unwilling connection they've forged, and Ben sees the two of them through her thoughts the same way she feels the hot welts down his spine rising on her own skin, burning hot and sensitive, stinging.

She sees them reflected a thousand-thousand times in the glass, identical forms made incredibly different by posture, expression, movement, and for a moment she is confused, thinks that she is being deceived, until she realizes  _who_ she's seeing. The way Kylo Ren's hand curls tight at the elegant line of Ben's throat and keeps him from breathing until the delicate boy sways, on the verge of unconsciousness. Only then does he release, allowing Solo his next breath, shifting his grip into the soft, dark curls of Ben's hair to pull his head back. Rasp into his ear in a voice that is hoarse from their shared asphyxiation.

" _She_ is interrupting my preparations." Silky, cruel, the way he says it, eyes on Rey while his lips ghost the shell of the other man's ear.  They are never apart like this, never separate enough for this kind of intimacy, and Ben knows it is Rey's doing, and doesn't know whether to hate her or thank her. Her connection with them, the added space of her mind and perceptions, make possible the bite that Kylo Ren delivers to Ben's throat. The hand in his hair, forcing his head backbackback until he thinks his neck might snap. "And  _you_ are the one that keeps letting her in."

 But Ben hears the slight waver in that voice. In the Other's fierce certainty. And he thinks, loud enough to earn himself another slap, that maybe, for once, Kylo is wrong.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for how disjointed this is, and how I jump back and forth from one set of events to another. I'm free-forming this, so it's not always linear, which can cause some, uh. Confusion.

He is there on the edges of her mind when she wakes, when she practices forms alone, when she is trying to meditate.

But never when Luke is with her.

It's a small blessing, because the old Jedi is accustomed to being a hermit, and his idea of training her lately is mostly philosophy about all the things she must give up. Frustratingly he does not give much detail as to  _how_ he expects her to free herself from her worldly chains. This is something he tells her she must meditate on, turning her eye outward to the immensity of the Force and the universe. And so she does, and when she does Luke usually retreats deeper into the bowels of the dilapidated temple, seeking his own seclusion. Perhaps his distance is the way he keeps  _himself_ from forming attachments, and if that's the case then Rey assumes it must be working. She knows very little about Luke Skywalker outside of what she has been told, and his demeanor-- professional, patient, but otherwise blank-- makes it impossible for her to think of him the way she thinks of her other friends.  Yet still, he is the light that Kylo Ren doesn't seem eager to scuttle into. Even with as much trouble as she's having with the concept of letting go of the only f-- and her mind stutters on the word, turns "friends" into "family" for a split-second before it continues on-- she's ever known, she's grateful for the respite.

Because otherwise, _he_ is always there.

In whispers that correct her stance. In easy nudges of her shoulders or hips to test her balance. A low chuckle that is not at all good-natured when she falls or fails or succumbs to frustration. Kylo Ren is the constant gnat buzzing at her ear. He tears her down with scathing quips whenever she begins to feel that  _maybe_ she understands what she's doing. In the beginning, this is painful. A torment that she can't escape. An endless litany day after day about how small and useless she is, how unfortunate the Resistance must be to pin all their hopes on some orphan from a backward planet. 

Except, it isn't always like that.

Sometimes his voice softens fractionally, and Rey hears threads that aren't directed at her, and she knows that she is somehow doing what  _he_ does. She is trespassing into his territory the way that he's always invading hers. It's something she accomplished on the interrogation table, and in dreams and Force visions, but it's not a power she has any finesse with. Rey doesn't know how to insinuate herself deeply enough in his consciousness to make  _him_ feel inadequate, but she is nothing if not resourceful. Unable to directly influence Kylo Ren, unable to alter what he feels or hears, she chooses instead to simply  _listen._ Her meditation often becomes just an amplifying technique as she focuses herself down to a single point and then wills that point to be wherever the First Knight is, traveling along the eyelash-thin thread that connects them. She is certain Luke wouldn't approve, but at the same time--

_Anakin Skywalker was on a nowhere planet when Qui-Gon Jinn found him, and he grew to a greatness that even you aspire to._

Rey knows that voice, but has so rarely heard it used with such gentleness. The timbre of it is different, in the absence of rage. There is no bite to it, no malice, just a tentative kind of reproach that she doesn't quite understand, because it seems as if Kylo Ren is arguing with  _himself._ Yet the energy signature is strange. The imprint that has always evoked fear and anger in her is still there, yes, but there is something within it, half-digested, that she can't name. Something that flickers feebly, but emits even now a dim light. It grows fainter still when she hears the snarl that is more familiar, and the space behind her eyelids is bathed in the bloody glow that she associates with battle. The smaller glimmer shrinks away from it, and she can  _feel_ the fear, the anxiety, the self-loathing that comes with disappointing the only one who matters.

 _Never use that name with me!_  The hatred behind it should be terrifying, blazing bright, accompanied by a strike to the ribs so hard that Rey can feel it lightyears away, but she can only reflect that she  _knows_ this rage, this voice, and that  _this_ is Kylo Ren.  This frenetic violence, the way his hands strike againagainagain in the same place, hammering the lesson home. She feels the bruise that will form at her side, bites her lips as though a physical sound will make him--  _them_ \-- aware that she is experiencing this too. He is bleeding under his skin, damaging fragile flesh that only recently closed completely over the wound he'd earned from Chewbacca, but Kylo Ren isn't the one feeling that pain, not completely. It's being force-fed to the other one, the one that curls in on itself and does not beg for mercy, but instead  _apologizes_ for its weakness, its compassion for the girl. It crawls and it submits and presses a bruised face to the First Knight's knee, and Rey feels the texture of the leather boot against her cheek where it meets the heavy wool of uniform pants. Tears and blood on her face and bruises on her body and the blood from her side and the ache of wounds unseen and unknown that do not heal because they are inside, and inside cannot be put right, cannot be fixed. And Kylo is the only one who understands, the only one who  _stays_ even though she is just this useless, disgusting  _thing_ , and every day she's  _failing_ him, and one day he will leave her too if she doesn't learn to just  _listen_ , to just  _do_ what he says, and think what he thinks, and  _be_ Kylo Ren. 

The thoughts and feelings aren't her own, but she doesn't know how to disengage. She can feel the bile creeping up her throat and focuses on that, rather than the feel of long, deft fingers combing through her curls.  _Not mine_ , her mind sorts, even while the sensation is filling her with someone else's relief. The way someone else's body sags in relaxation, and then shakes, sobbing, because finally the fear of aloneabandonedobsolete is abating a little. Forgiveness, in that same hand that had so liberally delivered punishment, and that makes the kindness  _mean_ more, doesn't it?  _Doesn't it?_  Slow combing of those digits, the kind of petting one might give an animal, but the cringing one doesn't feel the condescension the way Rey does, doesn't bridle at it. 

 _Vader's greatness came through pain and betrayal, Ben._ The name sticks in her awareness, confuses her, because Kylo Ren  _is_ Ben. She knows this from Leia Organa, from poor Han Solo, from Chewbacca on their flight to Ahch-To. They are the  _same_ person, but she thinks again of the way one imprint wraps around the other like an almost-complete shell. Thinks of that dim branch of spring green, choked with vines of bloody red. Thinks that this is something the Resistance needs to know, except that they wouldn't know what to do with it even if they did. Rey isn't sure  _she_ knows, or wants to know, what this could mean. She can still feel his hand in her hair, and how comforting it is for the other one--  _Ben_ , she reminds herself-- to have even that small contact, even that tiny amount of praise.  _Whether circumstances are difficult makes no difference if a person is unwilling to **overcome** those circumstances. How much one is able to overcome becomes the bar set for their strength. Our little desert rat eked out an existence on Jakku, but she cannot even withstand the weight of expectation that has fallen on her shoulders now. _

And just like that, she knows that her presence was noted from the start. She sees them perfectly, and through their eyes can see herself, lying still on her pallet, curled into a fetal knot that makes her even smaller. Sees through the network of flesh and bone to the core of herself, the energy signature that represents her in the Force, and watches the wash of molten gold that seems to suffuse every capillary with a deep, warming glow. Sees her own potential, her own ability, as she has been too unsure to envision it. Her capacity for strength, if only--

_She needs me just as much as you do._

Rey slams the door between them, draws the curtain down. Uses every mental image she can think of to break the connection and draw herself back, until she is separate and only Rey, but his amusement is still there. He knew she was present, knew what she would see, knew that showing Ben to her would make her feel what she's feeling now. Confusion and sadness and sympathy and disgust. Fear, because things had been so simple before, and were suddenly less so. Revulsion. A deep sense of having been used and invaded by Ben's emotions, though she would have bet that the boy--  _They're the same age!_ , her mind revolts-- never knew she'd been watching. 

It takes nearly an hour to center herself, to take each thought and emotion and ascertain that it is hers alone before she tries to let it go. Tries, fails, tries again. What she knows has the potential to turn the tide of war, if she can focus herself enough to make use of it. She can make an ally of Ben Solo, help him to reclaim his own body and mind, if he will forsake the slavish devotion he feels for Kylo Ren. But what then? Return him to his mother and uncle? Set him loose in a universe that had been terrorized by the figment of his imagination? How was she to know that what she'd experienced had even been accurate? Perhaps the First Knight's symbiosis with General Organa's son was just a story he was feeding to her to keep her off-balance, or incline her toward mercy when they next fought. Maybe Ben was meant to be some kind of bait.

Or maybe the connection between them unsettled the First Knight in the same way that it terrified her, and he had just used whatever he could think of to deter her from testing her own limits. It's a concept that Rey tosses back and forth in her mind, analyzing the possibility. It feels true. Feels right. After all, Kylo Ren had been enraged that first time, when she'd pulled his fear out of his head and thrown it in his face. Why not try to warp her into believing that his was the only power, that he was all-seeing and all-knowing, and in possession of a hostage? Why not disgust her with images of his father, as he had before, or try to break her with the memory of her own assault? She had retched into the ocean then, feeling powerless, feeling hollowed-out and destroyed, and hadn't thought that his going to extremes might have been more than just cruelty. Hadn't considered that Kylo Ren might brutalize her mind just to keep her out of his own. 

He knows nothing about her.

Rey has scaled massive wrecks under a scalding, loveless sun. She has been beaten when her salvage wasn't good enough, starved when she could find nothing worthy of trade. Had her meager scraps stolen from her until she learned to fight for what she needed with every fiber of her being. And when she was pushed to hands and knees and used and battered and justabody to people who shouldhavehelped because she was alittlegirl and hurtinghurtingstopitplease and all because they left her, left her to that, to be hurt like that, to be waiting for them to come back to her so she could ask  _why_ \-- even then, Rey had crawled and scraped and  _survived_. Because being less meant that she had to work harder, be harder, until she was  _more_ , and until no one could take that away from her. Her head had always been her sanctuary from the harsh realities of her body, and now even that was being taken from her. And she had resorted to self-pity, alone on this island with a monk whose only advice was to let go of herself. She had resorted to fear and worry. But that has never been who Rey  _is_. Rey is sharp to touch and she is fighting back and she is working until her muscles scream and she is functioning on less and that makes her more, because conquering the deprivation, surviving, is what she  _does_.

And she will not be swallowed by Kylo Ren, or if she is, she will make sure that he chokes on her.

 

Every day, she batters the door down. Every day, she travels that wispy thin thread between them and feels the strand thickening, until she barely has to squeeze herself down anymore. Every day, she watches over his shoulder while he trains, rehabilitating the body that bacta has healed but not perfected. And she feels his irritation to have her there. In meetings, he grapples with her, forces her back, keeps her from seeing the things she really  _wants_ to see. First Order efforts to rebuild their army after the destruction of Starkiller would be useful to the Resistance, and he makes sure that she doesn't see. Can't hear. He forms for her a dark vastness to sink in, as though it will make her go away, and Rey realizes that it takes more energy than he would like to let on for him to dig into her mind the way he'd been doing before. Her own passive observations are nowhere near as taxing, but she learns little about tactical maneuvers and armaments. These things he blocks at the cost of his own focus, and she is pleased when she can trip him up, or cause him a mistake. At times, she hears the other voice, the one he wants her to think of as Ben.

_You're making him angry--_

_Please don't do things like that--_

_You aren't the one who suffers if--_

But this is pleading she ignores, because she knows that it is merely another lie, crafted to play on her compassion. Part of her wonders if she would relent even if that voice were real. Part of her isn't sure whether Ben Solo would deserve mercy after all that he has allowed Kylo Ren to do.

This is before she sees his slight frame pushed against a mirror, reflected endlessly with the First Knight's hand pulling at his hair. Bowing him backward, baring his neck. And she can tell the difference between them immediately. Knows that Ben, for all that he would still tower over her, is not quite as tall, not quite as broad. He is lean and artful under the dark grey sweater, too casually dressed next to Kylo Ren's uniform and more menacing frame. The helmet is missing, but the taller one's face wears cruelty like a mask, and Rey knows that visage far better than the gentler one, whose features have drawn into an expression just shy of pain. There are teeth at the pale column of his throat, and Rey can feel them on her own, and it startles a cry from her that she wants to think is all suffering, except that it twins with Ben's and his is  _not_. But this is not about the boy's pleasure, this is about putting him in his place, and Kylo Ren bites down until he can taste blood, until he knows this mark will scar and Ben will  _remember_  who he belongs to, who his only ally is. 

" _You_ are the one that keeps letting her in." The accusation makes Ben flinch more than the bite did, but those dark eyes are watching _her_ , one pair impossibly wide, the other narrowed, sharp, as Kylo's tongue laves the broken skin and comes away wet with blood. He's almost  _purring_ , and the sound so close to the smaller man's ear provokes a shiver that echoes down Rey's spine, makes her angry, makes her  _hate_ them both for the lazy warmth it inspires. His free arm curls around Ben's torso, embracing until they are seamed together, spine to chest. She isn't the one under that hand, but she can feel it, and the firm warmth of the larger body behind her. The press of something that disgusts and terrifies her, before the borders between the two men haze and then disappear, one melting into the other, until Ben Solo is no longer visible. Just a prisoner relegated back to his cell. Rey can still feel him there, behind Kylo Ren's eyes, but there is no mistaking who holds the reins. 

She wonders if she could kill him here, in this place where all their minds intersect, and then wonders what that would mean for Ben. Or for her.

"Is that what you think..? That he wants to be free of me..?" The smirk is purely vicious, but the tone is almost,  _almost_ amiable, and as he steps toward her Rey is proud of herself for not giving up any ground. Even when he comes within a handspan of her, and she can feel heat radiating from him, although she knows his body is across a galaxy from hers. "Do you feel sorry for Ben, little rat?"

His fingertips trace her clenched jaw and the muscle there jumps under the gentle touch before she swats his hand away with her own, rubbing the affected area to free it from the odd crawling sensation he's imparted. 

"If you want so badly to be the hero, then come to Gan Moradir." The flash of his grin is unexpected, makes her queasy when she sees his teeth still limned with blood until he runs his tongue over them. If the flavor bothers him, she can't tell, and a large part of her thinks that he must like that taste.

 

"Save poor little Ben from the big, bad monster he invited in from the start." 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to share with you guys that although I started this fic listening to The Strokes, "Heart in a Cage", I've found myself listening to a LOT of Meg Myers when constructing these chapters. Specifically, when writing Kylo Ren, "Desire" is on repeat, with his rare gentle moments getting switched to "Sorry." For Rey, I've listened a lot to "Heart Heart Head." Ben has been a mix of, "Lemon Eyes" and "Adelaide."
> 
> If you've wondered what my soundtrack is for this body of work, that's been it so far. XD


End file.
